Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012 Winners Save Lives

Contest winners Daniel William and Ann Zalucky with their malaria net.The second annual Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) Innovation Competition challenged University of Calgary students to create and pitch viable products made out of wire hangers. The three-day event was hosted by Enactus-SIFE Calgary’s Push Network — a student club at the University of Calgary — and ran from November 13-16, 2012. The final rounds of the competition were held in Scurfield Hall, and featured four final teams pitching to various industry judges, including Craig Elias, CEO of SHiFT Selling, and Bob Schultz, Haskayne professor.

The winners of the competition were dynamic duo Daniel William (philosophy student) and Ann Zalucky (medical sciences student), who created an infant-sized malaria net that they planned to distribute across Africa in a social entrepreneurial venture. They utilized their wire hanger to act as the anchor/hook used to hang the malaria net over the child while they sleep. The pair is so passionate about stopping malaria — recognizing that one child in Africa dies every minute from the disease — they committed to donating half of their $1,000 winnings to the Malaria No More Foundation.

The second place rank went to three of Haskayne’s own marketing students — Sanja Avramovic, Jackie McKinley and Jayden Van — the creators of Wired, environmentally friendly DIY home décor craft kits that revolved around the use of a wire hanger.

Third place went to an engineering and accounting/economics duo that created a water turbine prototype to be used to generate green power from Alberta’s oilsands activities.

A unique feature of the Push Network’s GEW Innovation Competition is that it asks students to consider the triple bottom line — creating products that are environmentally conscious, socially responsible and profitable.